Dick Van Dyke turns 98 on December 13, 2023, and it seems he’ll need no help blowing out those birthday candles. To celebrate the actor and his decades-spanning career, CBS has announced a two-hour television birthday special, aptly titled Dick Van Dyke 98 Years of Magic, and to say we’re excited would be a gross understatement.
Dick Van Dyke’s career has spanned the best part of a century. He was born in West Plains, Missouri in 1925. His mother, Hazel Victoria, was a stenographer and his father, Loren Wayne, worked as a salesman.
The young Van Dyke almost became a man of the cloth, but drama class steered him onto the chosen path of entertainment. As mentioned in his autobiography, My Lucky Life in and Out of Show Business, “I suppose that I never completely gave up my childhood idea of being a minister. Only the medium and the message changed. I have still endeavored to touch people’s souls, to raise their spirits and put smiles on their faces.”
He was already pretty experienced by the time fame found him. Having set his sights on those bright lights, Van Dyke “went on to do it all,” The New York Times writes. “He was one-half of a touring mime team, a television announcer, a radio disc jockey.”
